Page 37 of Bonded By Blood
Chapter Ten
“Absolutely not,” Trista snapped. She shot to her feet as she spoke and stalked forward, her impractical heels click-clacking off the tiled floor. All of her sudden fury was locked on to Joe, preventing him from looking away, and he fought the need to fidget as she came to a stop inside his personal space. She was several inches shorter than him naturally, but her massive heels brought her almost to eye-level. And her dark eyes blazed. “I will not have those dogs running around my streets. They’ll just make this harder. Our arrangement is clear. If they come within the city—”
“With all due respect,” Joe said, unable to stop himself from interrupting her pointless tirade. “I don’t think you heard me. The way Adam sees it, he’s lost two pack mates to the Wilsons already. He nearly lost his Beta. He isn’t asking. The entire pack wants to see the Wilson brothers stopped just as badly as anyone here.” Maybe more.
Trista’s lips curled over her teeth as if she were repulsed by his words. “Who do you think you are, Joseph?” The question was low and, coupled with the look of danger in her eyes, made Joe’s blood go cold. “Do you think I permit all of my underlings to speak to me the way you just did? Do you think I care what some puppy with a barely-established pack wants?” She took another step closer. There were only a few inches between them now and it didn’t escape Joe’s attention that there were so very many ways this could end badly for him. But she wasn’t done. “Don’t tell me he’s ‘not asking.’ Tell him I’m ‘not allowing.’ I am the Queen. His natural lifespan is a fly in comparison, do you understand? Adam Jefferies is nothing. I don’t want that filthy canine in my city. I don’t want him sticking his snout in my business. And I do. Not. Care. If that makes him—or you—unhappy.”
Joe drew a breath. The smart thing would be to bow his head and acquiesce. She was the Queen, after all. The oldest, the strongest. This was her home. But Adam was his best friend. Jim was his friend. Simon had been his friend. He wanted to stay, or be, on good terms with the First Family. But he couldn’t do it at the expense of his former family. “I can’t tell him that.”
Trista’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her artificially curled bangs. “What did you say to me?”
“I think this is the kind of circumstance where cooperation is more important than pride,” Joe said. “I think it would be smarter to show Adam, whom you have an alliance with, that you never meant for this problem to spill into his lap. You could do that by working together. I don’t think he’s being unreasonable and I won’t tell him he has to sit on his hands and hope no one else he loves dies.”
By the time he registered the blur of movement, Joe’s head was already pivoting violently to the side with enough force to throw him off-balance. His face erupted in sharp, burning pain and stars of white exploded across his field of vision. Somewhere beyond all of that, he registered the sound of a hard slap.
“Mother!” Brianna’s exclamation barely preceded her arrival at Joe’s side, helping him steady himself. His head was still spinning.
“How dare you,” Trista said, presumably speaking to Joe. He couldn’t see straight yet. “If you love your flea-bitten friends so much, perhaps I should exile you so you can live with them. You can feed on rabbits and deer. See how satisfying their blood is compared to human. Is that what you’d prefer, Joseph?”
“Mother, stop,” Brianna said, her voice sharp. She still had hold of Joe’s shoulder and arm. His vision was clearing finally, though.
Trista seemed to have held her spot, leaving a small but welcome gap of multiple feet between herself and where Joe now stood. Multiple droplets of blood dotted the tiled floor in front of her, and a couple more fell from her fingertips. Or, more accurately, the tips of her long, sharp nails. Joe didn’t have to reach up and feel his face to know whose blood that was. His head was still pounding.
“If I may,” Seth said without moving forward from several feet away. His voice was calm. “It might not be what you’d prefer, but the involvement of the wolves could work to our advantage.”
Trista’s stare shifted to Seth. “How?” She bent her arm out at the elbow, holding out the hand still decorated with Joe’s blood, palm up, expectantly.
Moments later, one of her advisors swooped in with a cloth and began diligently wiping away any traces of her aggressive behavior.
“It’s not a move they’ll see coming. Not even whoever the traitor is.”
Joe frowned, not sure he agreed. He had his faculties again, save for the rapidly-fading headache, and he didn’t have to think that hard to see a flaw with that logic.
“They’d be bigger fools than I’ve given them credit for if they don’t expect retaliation from the wolves,” Trista replied. Her words were for Seth, but for the first time all day, she spoke the thought as it formed in Joe’s head.
Seth inclined his head. “Of course they expect retaliation.” He paused for the briefest of moments. “To be frank, Tobias probably expects them to retaliate against you. Especially in light of what happened to Joe—and the way you handled it.”
Silence hung in the air for a second.
“Are you judging me?”
Seth held up a hand as if to dissuade the notion. “No,” he said. “Just saying that if they try to guess anyone’s actions, the last guess they would make would be that the First Family and the local wolves are cooperating in this hunt. The presence of a werewolf patrol in the city, or even just the outlying communities, could rattle the Wilsons into slipping up. And a slip-up is all we need.”
In the renewed silence that followed, Joe distinctly heard Brianna take a breath. She loosened her grip of his arm, then released him altogether, and stepped toward her mother.
Trista’s attention snapped to her daughter.
“There is something else to consider, Mother.”
One of Trista’s brows lifted high on her forehead again. “And that is?”
“The matter with the Wilsons aside, the Family is fragile right now, with the reality of a traitor among us hanging over our heads.” When Brianna paused, Joe glanced around and caught the advisors exchanging wary looks. She’d spoken the truth. “I know you heard what Joe said. Adam Jefferies isn’t going to wait for your permission. If you push it, if we lash out against him and his pack when all he’s really doing is looking to make right what happened to one of his people and protect the people he has left, we’ll be starting a war.”
Trista scoffed. “Please, Brianna. There are more people in this building than in his entire pack. Why should we be concerned about ruffling their fur?”
Brianna shook her head. “We could win the fight against them, there’s no doubt about that. But what about the fight that would follow? We both know word would spread. Or are you so blinded by your line in the sand that you’ve already forgotten why you agreed to this alliance in the first place?”
There it was. The point Joe had been trying to avoid making himself since this bizarre argument had started. He was relieved, so glad Brianna had remembered what he felt was obvious, he even wanted to smile. But he refrained.